4 years ago, I spent the extra coin for a Pioneer plasma (PDP-5060HD), and although it's a 720p/1080i panel (1080p panels were pretty rare back then, particularly for plasmas), we still use it as our primary display, and it rocks. We have several other LCDs throughout the house, and they don't hold a candle to the plasma.
Regarding burn-in, on accident one time, I ran out of the house on an emergency trip and was out of town for 2 weeks and left the TV on (I now have the "auto-off after no input for 2 hours" setting to ON
). Worse yet is that the channel was set to one where a DirecTV logo was on the screen 90% of the time. When I got back, that logo was burnt in pretty bad. This was almost a year ago. It took a few months, but the ghost image has gone away completely. I thought I FUBAR'd the screen for good, but this was proof enough for me that stuff like this isn't permanent (at least in this case w/ my display).
Since I grew up w/ excellent CRTs from the SNES era forward, I think plasmas are the best at replicating that lovely, contrasty look with nice, rich color. Our next primary display will definitely be another Pioneer.
My vote is definitely for plasma, but honestly most properly calibrated sets will give you a very nice image.